1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic commerce system which conducts electronic commerce via a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, goods were sold to a purchaser that offers the highest price in a business transaction such as an auction or a competitive bidding process.
Additionally, for stock trading, there was a system which notifies a person who conducts a trade of selling or purchasing timing obtained by analyzing the status of a stock market, or provides the information required for the stock purchase and sale.
In recent years, EDI with which information are electronically exchanged with a particularly preset partner, or a system which preregisters a commodity desired to be purchased to a virtual store on the Internet, and automatically places a purchase order to the store at the timing when the stock of this commodity is put on sale or the commodity newly arrives at the store, has been popularized.
Since a transaction partner is determined only according to a price in the conventional business transaction system such as a bidding process, an auction, etc., not a few cases exist where a commodity cannot be purchased or sold at a desired price, compared with the case of a normal business transaction.